The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

by David E. Sanger

“I’m not that worried about the thugs, the vandals, and the burglars,” he would quickly add. It was up to companies and government agencies to guard against the run-of-the-mill bad actors on the Internet. It was the spies—and particularly the saboteurs—who kept him up at night. And the saboteurs who hit Ukraine’s power grid in 2015 were not amateurs. “All the advantages go to the attacker,” Ozment warned. Putin appeared to be making that point in Ukraine.

Then, to keep a similar breach from happening again, USB ports on Department of Defense computers were sealed with superglue.

The Natanz computer systems were “air gapped” from the outside, meaning they had no connections to the Internet. The CIA and the Israelis endeavored to slip the code in on USB keys, among other techniques, with the help of both unwitting and witting Iranian engineers. With some hitches, the plan worked reasonably well for several years. The Iranians were mystified about why some of their centrifuges were speeding up or slowing down and ultimately destroying themselves.

In short, to stop the Bomb, America’s new cyber army had made a bomb—a digital one.

The story was full of details and markers that took the code right to the gate of Fort Meade, where the NSA is located,

Gone were the days of open demonstrations of military might that invited retaliation, escalation, and international condemnation. Gone were the days of occupying territory. The defense of Israel, he insisted, required subtlety and indirection.